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water that instantly froze

Analog

Lifer
Jan 7, 2002
12,755
3
0
its water + sodium acetate. Google this, and you'll see that its a super cooled liquid. It needs some energy input to begin the crystallization process. Notice that he is stirring it rather hard. If he had just held it there, nothinig would happen.
 

Kipper

Diamond Member
Feb 18, 2000
7,366
0
0
It's also possible to achieve the same results with normal water, if you stick it in the freezer for long enough. What you do is take it out after a couple of hours, I believe, shake it around, and it will freeze.

The explanation I read was that the molecules are in between the liquid and solid states and agitating them makes them automatically arrange themselves into the solid form...

But maybe a physicist can explain it better than I can.
 

Analog

Lifer
Jan 7, 2002
12,755
3
0
In addition, if he was indeed using sodium acetate, then that happened at room temperature. You mix the sodium acetate (food grade) with water, then boil until totally dissolved. Then let it cool to room temperature. By agitation, then it will instantly crystallize, like the video.
 

Bozono

Banned
Aug 17, 2005
2,883
0
0
That can happen with beer too. If the beer's been cooled to, say, -8C, then you open it in say -2C, it will immediately freeze and you'll be pretty P.O.'ed.
 

nboy22

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2002
3,304
1
81
if you ever need to cool your beers fast, just grab a cooler, throw some ice in there and then throw some rock salt in the ice..... damn it gets cold!
 

nakedfrog

No Lifer
Apr 3, 2001
62,829
19,038
136
Originally posted by: Kipper
It's also possible to achieve the same results with normal water, if you stick it in the freezer for long enough. What you do is take it out after a couple of hours, I believe, shake it around, and it will freeze.

The explanation I read was that the molecules are in between the liquid and solid states and agitating them makes them automatically arrange themselves into the solid form...

But maybe a physicist can explain it better than I can.

I had somethink like that happen to me once, I had a container of water in the freezer for a while, but it was still liquid... and it froze as I was pouring it into my glass. It was pretty cool.
 

EKKC

Diamond Member
May 31, 2005
5,895
0
0
i see new cooling solutions for all of our rigs (well not mine. dude i got dells)
 

Scarpozzi

Lifer
Jun 13, 2000
26,392
1,780
126
I wonder if someone has been poisoning all the girls I've dated with this stuff. Any time I start to "agitate" them, they freeze up on me...
 

rgwalt

Diamond Member
Apr 22, 2000
7,393
0
0
Originally posted by: yellowfiero
In addition, if he was indeed using sodium acetate, then that happened at room temperature. You mix the sodium acetate (food grade) with water, then boil until totally dissolved. Then let it cool to room temperature. By agitation, then it will instantly crystallize, like the video.

There are two different potential effects going on here. One is supercooling, where liquid water can be cooled to below freezing, but if the water is absolutely pure and the sides of the container are extremely smooth, then no seed ice crystals can form around imperfections or particles. So the water remains liquid, but as soon as someone agitates the container it freezes instantly.

The other phenomena mentioned occurs when you super saturate a solution with a solute. You heat the liquid up, add the solute to the proportion such that when you cool the liquid down it is super saturated. In other words, there is more solute in the liquid than it can actually hold. The whole thing will crystalize with sufficient agitation or by the addition of a seed crystal or some particle which the solute can form a seed crystal on/around.

As far as putting rock salt on ice in a cooler... Rock salt lowers the freezing point of liquid water. As the ice in your cooler melts to form liquid water the liquid water is a 0C, while some of the ice is well below that temperature, say -15C. The addition of rock salt allows the water to melt at a lower temperature, say -5C. Thus, the resulting solution of water and salt is colder than water alone. Since liquid water is far more effective in transferring heat than ice, if you can make your water colder, your beer will get colder, faster.

R
 

Eeezee

Diamond Member
Jul 23, 2005
9,922
0
76
Originally posted by: nboy22
if you ever need to cool your beers fast, just grab a cooler, throw some ice in there and then throw some rock salt in the ice..... damn it gets cold!

An even better drick is to take some tongs and dip it into a vat of liquid nitrogen for half a second. I've done that a few times with soda.
 

DaTT

Garage Moderator
Moderator
Feb 13, 2003
13,295
122
106
Originally posted by: nboy22
if you ever need to cool your beers fast, just grab a cooler, throw some ice in there and then throw some rock salt in the ice..... damn it gets cold!

Haha...Mythbusters!!!
 

Snapster

Diamond Member
Oct 14, 2001
3,916
0
0
Originally posted by: Eeezee

An even better drick is to take some tongs and dip it into a vat of liquid nitrogen for half a second. I've done that a few times with soda.


How many people have a vat of liquid nitrogen just laying around ?
 

Fenixgoon

Lifer
Jun 30, 2003
33,305
12,873
136
we just talked about that in my chemsitry class, actually... its a super-saturated solution...